Reviews | Written by Andrew Pollard 21/11/2014

ARROW Season 3, Episode 7 ‘Draw Back Your Bow’

Draw Back Your Bow fully introduces us to a familiar DC villain in the form of the Arrow-obsessed Cupid (Amy Gumenick), who was first glimpsed in the closing moments of last week’s Guilty. We’re quickly brought up to speed with this ever-so stalkerish rogue as it’s revealed early on in the episode how Carrie Cutter was saved from some mirakuru-filled thugs by The Arrow during Slade Wilson’s (Manu Bennett) attack on Starling City six months ago. As a result, The Arrow became the apple of Carrie’s eye, her knight in shining (green) armour, the object of her affections, and so the already-unstable Cutter picked up her own bow and arrow and decided to go by the name of Cupid, stalking the scenes of The Arrow’s work and taking out people purely to catch his attention. Sure beats a bad chat-up line, right?

Elsewhere, Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) is now off the hook when it comes to who murdered Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), but the newly-dubbed Arsenal has to deal with knowing that he killed an innocent cop when he was juiced up on mirakuru. Sticking with Team Arrow, Felicity’s (Emily Bett Rickards) arc again pushes her further towards Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), much to the chagrin of Ollie. And with Queen Consolidated seemingly no more, it appears that Palmer is hitting Oliver where it hurts on various levels. His burgeoning relationship with Felicity is taking the young Miss Smoak away from her Arrow-based adventures, whilst Palmer Technologies is apparently replacing Queen Consolidated. Oh, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Ray is even working out and doing his own salmon ladder routine, something which we thought Stephen Amell and Oliver Queen had trademarked. Thing is, Palmer is one of the good guys, it’s just that his actions are in conflict with certain facets of Oliver Queen and The Arrow, although at least now his ascension towards becoming The Atom is seemingly fully underway. But what’s not to like about Brandon Routh’s Palmer; he’s charismatic, honest, thoughtful, determined, heartfelt, naturally likeable, and has now joined the topless, ripped torso club. If we didn’t know any better, we’d say he’d be a natural fit to play Superma… oh, wait.

Whereas it apparently takes some charm and an expensive dress to turn the head of Felicity these days, Draw Back Your Bow only further drilled home that Diggle (David Ramsey) is well and truly the father figure of the Team Arrow family, with him acting as a go-to between Ollie and Felicity, not to mention the voice of reason on many issues so far this season; he is the glue that has often been holding it all together during the last few weeks. Still, with this role there’s always that slight shred of worry that Digg may not make it whenever the next serious threat targets Startling City. Similarly, there was the worry that Maseo Yamashiro (Karl Yune) may not make it out of this episode during the Hong Kong flashbacks. He survived for now, but more importantly we got to see our first glimpse of wife Tatsu (Rila Fukushima) using her impressive swordsmanship skills to kick some ass, which will only get DC fans’ tongues wagging in the hope that the character winds up taking on the Katana moniker that her comic book iteration does.

As for the central villain of this week’s outing, Cupid is delivered entertainingly by Amy Gumenick and it’s nice to see that, even though she’s dispatched of by the time the episode rolls to a close, there’s the possibility for her to make appearances again in the future as part of the Suicide Squad. The characterisation of Cupid was well handled by the creative minds behind Arrow, with her coming off as like something from a creepy, teen-heavy horror of yesteryear with a large dollop of Harley Quinn (who herself was vaguely referenced by Diggle towards the episode's end) thrown in for good measure, giving her a playful edge to her sinister actions.

Whilst Cupid made for an enjoyable foe for The Arrow, Draw Back Your Bow delivers plenty of anguish for Oliver Queen on a personal level, with his torment at the situation with Felicity clear for all to see. Ollie knows that Felicity is the one for him, yet he knows he just simply cannot be with her as he has to think of the greater good, of Felicity’s safety, and of the mission at hand to protect Starling City. As a result, we get an angry Emerald Archer at times here, and it looks like Felicity has now been well and truly swept off her feet by the Palmer Technologies bandwagon for the immediate future. Mind you, The Arrow looks like he has enough on his plate to keep him busy next time as, much like last week’s Guilty ended by introducing us to a new villain, Draw Back Your Bow closed by introducing us to Captain Boomerang (Nick Tarabay) ahead of Arrow’s crossover with sister show The Flash. Plus there’s still the ominously silent threat of Ra’s al Ghul waiting to come, and that could throw The Arrow’s world into complete turmoil.

Final thought though, was anybody else really, really, really hoping that Cupid (or anyone for that matter) would put an arrow through the new, obnoxious DJ at Verdant? Yeesh...